Don't confuse confidence for competence

Confidence is good, it gives a person the power to do things that a person with low or no confidence may not be able to do easily. This is also one quality that many desire to see in their leaders. However, many times, confidence is confused with competence. People tend to forget that both things are completely different and have no relation with each other. That is, it is not necessary that a competent person will also be confident and it is also not necessary that a confident person will also be competent. Of course, it will be great if a competent person is confident, but unfortunately, this is not the case. But there are many confident people whose competence can be questioned, especially in the field of politics. I don't think I need to cite any names here, just look around the world. In many countries, some leaders are elected or extremely popular because they are excellent orators, they speak with all confidence and conviction, but there is no real change, they just keep on giving speech after speech. People love their confidence and confuse it for competence. Such leaders develop an image of charismatic leaders, developing a cult-like following, but no real change happens, but their supporters don't care, they are mesmerized by the magic this leader creates, for them the image in their mind is more important than the reality on the ground.  

Confidence is good, but it is not everything. We should try to look beyond confidence, to see if it is accompanied by competence or exists as a trait to shield incompetence. Just because someone dominates the room or conversation, occupies the stage with ease, entertains the audience, knows how to push their point with force and conviction, and can say unpopular things does not make them a good leader. Also, being confident is not a red flag per se. But being confident without being willing to be accountable, without accepting any mistakes, taking all the credit all the time, demeaning people or team members for disagreeing, or behaving like an autocrat are red flags and signs of a terrible leader, these can be signs of a dictator but not a leader. This world has seen many confident and popular leaders who did tremendous harm not only to their own countries but to the entire world. I don't think we have learned our lessons from those events as it seems we fall for the same trap again and again. Somehow divisive politics seem to appeal to us even in the twenty-first century. Somehow hate-mongers still get elected as lawmakers. Somehow religion still divides people rather than uniting them. If you look at all these problems, you will find some extremely confident but utterly incompetent leaders. These leaders know how to use people, but don't care for them. They are okay with people fighting among themselves, hating or killing each other, but seldom put themselves or their families in the line of fire. These leaders want to be popular and win at any cost, even at the cost of human life or the unity of their country. I am not calling these leaders incompetent because they lose elections or fail to inspire, many of them keep on winning elections and inspire their supporters to do unimaginable things. I am calling them incompetent because any good leader is supposed to unite and lead, bridge gaps within their country, and create harmony, but they don't do this, rather they do the exact opposite. Therefore, my humble request, please don't confuse confidence for competence. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

My "weird" tiger tooth

I have a unique arrangement of my teeth, they can make a challenging project for any orthodontist. I have one tooth that is different than others, called "tiger tooth" and I call it "weird" not because I think it is weird, but just to highlight the fact that it is unique and different from my other teeth. While growing up in India I never felt that my teeth were unique, as there were quite a few with similar teeth. However, when I came to the USA I was amazed to see the nearly perfect alignment of teeth of almost every individual. I never knew about orthodontists while growing up, also, I never heard of anyone getting their teeth arrangement fixed. Going to a dentist was a rare event in my neighborhood, people visited the dentist only and only when tooth pain became unbearable or there was some accident where they had some damage to their teeth. We did not know anything about annual dental cleaning or flossing regularly. So, like many others, my spectacular teeth remained as they naturally chose to arrange themselves. This was perfectly normal until television and movies started dictating all over the world what is a perfect smile and how having perfectly arranged teeth is an essential aspect of being presentable.  

When my kids got into their teens they needed to visit an orthodontist as I don't think they can survive in today's world with the kind of teeth that I have :) Occasionally, some young child tells me that my teeth need to get fixed, and I nicely tell them that they don't, they are just different from theirs, the same way as my skin color or my height or bodyweight is different than many people around me, my teeth are little different than many others around me. They accepted my answer, but their question indicated how conditioned we and our society are getting due to the standardization of certain beauty or appearance standards. I am not saying resisting these things is easy, rather, it is extremely difficult to swim against the tide. How do you enter a room where everyone is sitting in a suit and you are the only one without it, especially when you are a beginner and most people don't know who you are? It's frightening for many that they will be judged based on their teeth, body hair, or clothes. Therefore, most of us try to fit in and subscribe to the standards dictated to us. I never consciously chose not to go to the orthodontist, I never had access to them, due to money and other reasons. But when I could afford an orthodontist, it was my choice not to get my teeth "fixed." This was for all kids like me who were not aware of the dictated beauty standards. Every smile is beautiful, is a cliche, people say it, but the conditioning is so deep that you will never see a toothpaste or any other advertisement with a person like me, not because we don't smile but because our smile doesn't fit in the standardized definition of a beautiful smile.

It is also true that I never faced any problems due to my teeth, people are extremely cordial and nice to me, but I see the trauma and stress many go through at a very young age because they have something that doesn't fit into the standardized definition of beautiful. I encourage them to create their own standards and be confident about them. Wouldn't it be amazing if we all express and enjoy the beauty in our own way, rather than trying to fit in the definitions created by someone who doesn't even know us? 

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.